It’s time to abandon those Panasonic Toughbooks in the rain forests of Borneo because the SwitchBack UltraMobile PC is out to kick its ass. Not only is it military qualified for abuse thanks to its magnesium housing and shock-mounted electronics, it also can stand humidity and up to 30 minutes in three feet of water. It’s designed to operate and reboot anywhere because you can literally bring its mini QWERTY keyboard and sunlight visible 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen display into any environment and then slide in its hot swappable battery, refreshing its power supply in two minutes without shutting down. No matter where you carry the SwitchBack UltraMobile PC in its customizable backpack, its patented diagnostics dashboard will make sure it won’t fail and it’ll monitor power consumption, primary and secondary battery levels and temperature.

What separates the SwitchBack from other rugged laptops is the near certainty that whether you’re on top of a mountain or in the middle of a thick forest, the constant diagnostic monitoring and extra hot four-hour power battery means you’ll always be able to recover your data. The solid state drive itself is removable and the whole unit is only three pounds. Plus, a special high-speed connection interface backpack means portability is just the beginning. The backpack can be customized with as many ports, adapters and USB ports as needed for any high-grade peripheral like a digital camera, biometric scanner, high-definition audio or an external graphics card, among others. The operating system is completely up to you as well -- from Windows XP, Windows Vista or Linux.

The SwitchBack will likely remain pristine through countless generations of operators given its survivability at a storage temperature of -40F and +167F. It can survive a 48-foot drop onto solid concrete and is operational at -4F or 131F. It can withstand dust and within its magnesium housing lies reinforced rubber isolators for shock absorption. The SwitchBack UltraMobile PC has the capability to adjust to your changing applications and computing needs, with expanded storage of up to 120GB along with a fully rechargeable battery. Full diagnostic evaluation means that you’ll know if there is a problem before it gets too big to fix. And, as a last resort, if there is no saving the SwitchBack, the solid state hard drive can be removed and the data transferred to another system.